Transport from Chrysoupoli, Kavalla, Macedonia, Greece to Dupnitsa, Sofia, Bulgaria on 05/03/1943

On March 4, 1943 the Bulgarian authorities in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace began to deport all the Jews from these territories. The decision for the action was taken earlier that year when Alexander Belev and Theodor Dannecker (who already had experience deporting the Jews of France) signed a special agreement to deport 20,000 Jews from Bulgaria to "the German Eastern regions". The Jews living in Chrysoupoli were brought first to the assembly site in Xanthi, a converted tobacco warehouse. After almost 3 days there they were loaded onto a train together with the members of the local Jewish community and sent to the city of Dupnitsa in Bulgaria. On the way the deportees were transferred twice onto different trains because of the change in the track gauge on both sides of the old Greek–Bulgarian border. The Jews were mistreated and humiliated by the Bulgarian police and officials during both transfers in Sidirocastro and Simitli. The journey between the two train stations was carried out in small, open box cars on a freezing night in early March. After the deportees were loaded back onto regular freight cars at Simitli, they arrived in Dupnitsa on March 8. There, they were detained again in another tobacco warehouse for the next 10 days. Unlike the Jews from Xanthi and Komotini who had arrived at the same assembly site earlier, those arrested in Chrysoupoli were Bulgarian citizens. On account of this fact they, together with other Bulgarian Jews who had been detained in Macedonia and Thrace prior to the deportation, were released just before all the others were sent first to Lom and from there to Treblinka from where no one returned.